ABARTH 500E

Has Fiat's performance division succeeded where rivals have failed by making a truly engaging electric hot hatch?

- MARK TISSHAW

Many of the hot hatchbacks of today are a far cry from their altogether simpler ancestors, in some cases costing upwards of £50,000 and having technical specifications that wouldn't look out of place in touring car racing.

Forgetting about any notion of emotional appeal for a second, it's against this background where suddenly a hot hatch powered by electricity doesn't seem quite so daft. Bigger, heavier, more complex and more expensive? They were going there anyway.

The Abarth 500e is one of the first electric hot hatches, a pioneer in trying to find out whether one of the most loved and revered types of car can cut it in this industry-wide transition.

As its name suggests and Abarth's way of making cars dictates, it's closely related to the electric Fiat 500. Very closely, in fact - the two sharing almost all of their key running gear.

The front-mounted motor has had more power and torque liberated from it (it's now rated at 152bhp and 173lb ft - increases of 35bhp and 11lb ft over the Fiat) through some optimisation of internal losses and simply making it work harder.

Meanwhile, the single fixed gear ratio has been raised from 9.6 to 10.2 to try to best match performance with top speed.

The battery is the same 42kWh floor-mounted lithium ion unit.

Abarth has made some tweaks to its current, but the fairly slow charging limit of 85kW remains.

The range drops from 199 to 164 miles partly due to these revisions (more to the styling, which goes all-in on sportiness rather than optimised for aerodynamic efficiency).

These changes, says Stellantis's chief BEV propulsion engineer, Maurizio Salvia, are still enough to make it "quicker everywhere" that matters than the 695 (which stays on sale as a petrol offering for Abarth, copying Fiat's strategy with the petrol and electric 500s).